Black-Eyed Suzie Art Dolls and Oddities

The Good, the Bad and the Next Shop Update

This past week has been a bit of an emotional  rollercoaster here in Suzie-ville; some lovely and exciting things have happened, as well as a few of the crappier variety.  On the less pleasant side,  I had yet another computer fiasco and my dear, sweet life-facilitator is now idling at the mac shop, leaving me to (yes, again!) labour away on a seven-year old laptop.  Of course, I realize that as far as catastrophes this one is, well, not one at all.  But it is a reminder of just how very dependent I am on a machine.  Sort of creepy, actually.  But in the 'good things' category, I was interviewed a few months back for an article on Etsy and micromanfacturing, and it ran this in the Life & Style section of this weekend's  Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. You can read the online version here.

 

Probably the most exciting thing for me was the large photo of the divine Ms. Kelly they ran; it has led to many emails and some possibly other exciting media-type goodness, but my suspicious nature doesn't permit me to name it until it's actually taken place.  We shall see...

Back to the bad, my poor kitty (pictured here keeping Vampire Bess warm) was coughing unusual coughs last week, so  we took him to the vet and found out he has asthma.  Who knew??  I don't think I've ever heard of kitty asthma, but they have lungs too, so I guess it's not that weird.  But that bad becomes a good because it is treatable and after a few days of his medication, he's wheeze-free. 

Good again: I finally made some gift certificates for the shop, which I think are pretty cute.  Both digital and paper verisons are available here.

 

Last in the 'bad' category is that my husband and the three other writers on his TV show were unceremoniously laid off with no warning two months before their job was supposed to end.  Merry Christmas, faithful employees!  In the words of a dear, French friend of ours in the same field, "C'est juste une maudite gagne de crosseur de poule morte!"  But let's turn that frown upside down; now I have a full-time (and exceedingly handsome) elf to assist with all my doll-making needs.  He's a very talented sander and varnisher and with his help, I'm getting more done than I dreamed possible.

Here are few of the little ones we've been working on, all decked out in their Christmas colours.  I'm not a big fan of bright red or forest green (except when it's in a forest of course) so I've chosen colours inspired by cranberries, champagne and snow (incidentally, also three things I love!)

 

These ladies and several others will make their debut on Tuesday, December 1st at 5:00 pm Eastern/ 2:00 pm Pacific.  I'll be back with an official shop update banner in a day or two, once a few of these little darlings have some hair.

A party dress and a bald head in November? Brrr...The dolls say non!

Her Diamond Heart

Sunday night we went to see two beautiful mavens of contemporary folk, Marissa Nadler and Alela Diane.  They both have beautiful voices and are great songwriters, and Alela's concert was very stripped-down and pure, much like her c.d.. (It's interesting how some performers are very consistent live, whereas some do completely unexpected things in concert;  I've seen Neko Case perform three times and each time was different; once she brought a Baltic women's choir onstage, once an eighty-year-old female yodelling champion.  I love them both!)   I hadn't heard much from Nadler before except one song which I loved called Diamond Heart.  But having heard the recording didn't prepare me for seeing her perform it live, which actually brought tears to my eyes.  She was very nervous and shy onstage, but when she sang this song, her voice was so clear and haunting, a word that gets overused these days, but is accurate in this case; it was perfect.

Here she is looking like an ethereal, gothy, desert fairy.  I'll take that dress, please!  And because I've somehow managed to delete my new playlist, to which I'd added that song, here she is singing it live so beautifully in what looks to be a pretty rinky-dink little cd shop; but still, she sounds amazing.

I'm busily working away on new dolls, ornaments and pendants for my next shop update which will take place as early in December as possible.  But my back is  starting to complain about all the sculpting and  sanding of teeny tiny heads, so I can't push it too hard.  Most of the new pieces are still in the early stages, but I have finished one little piece; this rather tragic-looking pendant:

 

She hopes you're all having lovely, song-filled days...

Bad Hair, Good Day

Thank you so much to all who have left comments recently about the new dolls for this month's update; I've dropped the ball and haven't had time to reply to any  left in the past week or so, but I read them all and appreciate them so much.  The update went swimmingly and I'm delighted anew each time that people actually remember and attend and adopt and it's just so fun for all of us. (The dolls and me, that is - not me and all my other personalities.  Although maybe they amount to the same thing?  And even Mr. Lovely gets swept in the fun...)

Also, it occurred to me the other day that many of the new girls have short hair, which is relatively new for me, and that maybe this was an instance of art imitating life. Or maybe just me imitating me, because I recently got my hair cut short for the first time since I was eleven, when my grandmother took me to see her favourite hairdresser at the stripmall across the street from her apartment building.  Now, had I been a few years older and had already been saturated by the forthcoming adolescent cynicism and snobbery, the fact that this was the preferred stylist of a seventy-year-old woman AND the fact that she worked out of a suburban mall might have tipped me off that I was not going to walk out of there the as the diminuitive fashionista I imagined myself to be.  But at that tender age, I was so excited to be going to a real hairdresser, I went like a lamb to the slaughter, earnestly  bearing my photo of Olivia Newton John circa Let's Get Physical and said, 'Make me look like this'. 

 

But no, gentle reader, you guess correctly: I did not come out looking like Olivia.  I came out looking a little like Andy Gibb, only less feminine.  I came out with shortish, feathered mullet and in equally short order, I was mistaken for a boy.  So traumatized was I by that haircut, I swore never again.  But after I broke my knee this summer and realized I'd be washing my hair in the sink for a month, I rediscovered a small, brave place inside me.  I'd also recently  been crushing out a little on Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica circa season 1 (I think nerds everywhere will agree, she's so fracking hot!) and wondered if I could pull it off.

 

Finally, Mr. Lovely assured me there's no way I could, at this point in my life, be mistaken for a boy, so he chopped those locks off.  And I'll be damned if he isn't a million times better with a pair of scissors than that butcher in the mall, not to mention the stylists at many high-priced chichi-poopoo salons I've dropped over $100 in (back in the days when I actually spent money on haircuts - never again!)  So, there you have it - a happy ending to sad hair story.  Short is cute and easy and I might never go back...

In other news, Mr. Lovely and I took a beautiful walk along the canal today and saw a beaver, which was very odd, as we had just been talking about beaver dams (an unusual topic in itself) when a nice man with his dog pointed and said "un castor" and there he was, chewing away on a scrap of wood with his giant chompers.  Very unexpected when one lives in an a teeming metropolis, so we urged him to make haste and find a safe place for the winter.  Then, almost as exciting, I found the motherload of eye candy, issue nine of Lula at the newsstand in the market after I'd all but given up hope.  I'd even tried to order it from a place in NYC, and after three weeks they refunded my money and said they wouldn't be getting a second shipment after all.  Sigh.  It's all the soft-lit, cotton candy, fashiony goodness I hoped it would be. 

Well, I just got the cats high on catnip, and it's shaping up to be a pretty exciting evening here chez Faber, so I must dash.  Tata for now!

Shop Update Today: More Photos

The update is fast approaching and I have been a busy little bee; I have to get out in the sunshine for a bit before I become a pasty beast.  I mentioned yesterday that I would try to post some full-length shots; I have some, but I had to go the quick and dirty route and apologize as this is not my best mosaic work.  The close-up mosaics (in the post immediately below this one) are much better.  I always seem to miscalculate just how long the whole business of taking and editing photos takes, even with the help of my favourite husband (thanks baby!)

But these should give you some idea of clothing and scale, so without further excuses...

...Here I come, beautifully  strange and unfamiliar glowing orb in the sky...

Shop Update Photos (New November Girls)

I'm having four people over for dinner in a couple of hours; not ready!  NOT ready! I had hoped to have more photos to post, but for now all I have are the close-ups.  If I have time, I'll post more tomorrow during the day, before the update, but hopefully these will give you an idea of the theme. 

 

I wanted something November-y, but all I could think of was "November Rain" (the song still plays in my head far too often, planted there by my very uncool adolescent love for G & R).  But then I found a book called Under November Skies and think that's a little more in line with my current state of mind than an eleven minute hair-band rock-ballad.  These little ladies are somewhat melancholic (surprise!) and are all wrapped up in little sweaters, scarves and yes even legwarmers (I'll never truly reject you, 80s!) 

All of these dolls are on the smaller side; 10.5 - 11 inches.

 

I've always loved old cabinet photos, and keeping with the grey and nostalgic mood of November skies, I've combined some doll images with the  old frame from a daguerreotype to make these prints:

Duchess Bunny Tintype

 

 November Rain Tintype (I couldn't resist...)

Lula's Tintype

 

Ernestine's Tintype

 

Thank you for looking; must run off and cook, clean, shower, run around like a chicken with my head cut off, mutter unspeakable things when I can't get it all done on time, be grateful that I have friends who don't care, eat, drink, be merry, sleep, dream.  Until tomorrow dears!

Shop Update Tomorrow: Under November Skies

I'm nearly finished photographing all the dolls for tomorrow's update and will be posting the photos by this evening, though this post will stay at the top. (The photos are up!)  The update will take place tomorrow, Sunday, November 8th at 4 pm Eastern/ 1pm Pacific.  To convert this to a different time zone, click here.

Much Atweet about Nothing?

Some of you have written to say that you're happy I'm back posting again.  Other than 2 1/2 weeks in October, however, I haven't really been away.  So if that's the absence some are referring to, I'm touched that it didn't go unnoticed.  But a few others also wrote to say that my blog hasn't been updating in their google readers since August (!!) even though I've been posting fairly regularly since then.  I contacted Typepad about that snag and it was hastily fixed, so thank you Petrina, for alerting me to the problem and my apologies to anyone who's been flummoxed, or wondering why I've been flaking out for all these months.  I'm pretty flaky, but not quite that flaky. No doubt I did something weird to my blog preferences without even noticing;  I'm definitely that flaky.

 

And while we're on the topic of webmastering (or my inability to do so) I finally took the massive (for me) plunge and joined Twitter.  I have to say I've been pretty skeptical about Twitter for a while.  I can definitely sees its potential to be really useful and entertaining (being clever and interesting in 140 characters is no small feat); on the other hand, I see its potential to become a place for any and all mental ephemera...whatever happens to be running through one's mind at the moment recorded for whomever to see.  And when I've browsed through some people's posts, it has sometimes seemed like just that; pretty mundane stuff that, while we all experience it, I'm not sure why anyone would want to read about it.  Or, in other cases, it seemed like reams and reams of pure, unadulterated self-promotion; while it would be disingenuous of me to pretend I have no interest in promoting my work, I guess I hope that's not all I'm doing. (It still amazes me that people read this little ol' blog of mine - I was worried when I started it that I wouldn't be able to think of anything worth writing about.)

But then I found some people on Twitter who truly manage to be both funny and informative, and I've decided to give it a try.  I'm not marrying it just yet; just having a dalliance, hoping to drop a few bon mots its way, catch its eye, see if we have any chemistry.  And I so while I'm a little red-faced even suggesting this, if you want to 'follow me' (come one - it sounds dirty, right?) you can do so by clicking on the little twitter icon on the right hand side under 'My Other Accounts' (just under my Flickr badge).  My Twitter username is Blackeyedsuzi (no 'e') as sadly my preferred spelling has been usurped.

Finally, I've settled on this Sunday, November 8th at 4:00 pm for my next shop update featuring more of these be-sweatered ladies.  This one will be smaller than my last, with 8 - 10 new dolls and a few new prints; as my thesis deadline approaches, writing takes up more and more time.  But I will do one more before Christmas, sometime in early December.

I'm off to make to make dinner...Happy November!

But Once a Year...

I know I'm getting older because I had such a delightful Hallowe'en and it did not involve a string of parties, drenching myself in fake blood, nor even a single fake wound; instead Mr. Lovely and I  gave out candy to the trick-or-treaters and then ordered a pizza, drank some wine and  watched Carrie. 

 

Mr. Lovely carved the pumpkin, and I was very gratified to hear several kids exclaim, "I got an eyeball!" (or the French equivalent: un oeil!) after we gave them their loot.   Oh, veiny delight!

 

Thin clouds passing over the nearly-full moon directly above us, big yellow leaves blowing by, packs of children in grotesque masks - a more perfect evening could not be contrived, really.  And all the little Victorian row houses on our street only added to the atmosphere of ghostliness and decay.

And if you were to walk out into the leaf-blown road and look up, way up (any Friendly Giant fans out there?) into our window, you might see just the slightest shimmer of a little black cat before he's gone!

And while I'm pretty sure there's almost no one left over the age of twenty who hasn't seen Carrie, I will urge you just in case. Or maybe you haven't seen it since it you were a teenager, or since it came out almost forty years ago.  It is so, so good; you just have to be willing to surrender yourself to some of the campier aspects.  And a film that can squish the themes of female sexuality, religious fanatacism, identity, social ostracism and occult powers into a movie about a senior prom?  How could that go wrong?  Piper Laurie is just about the coolest, creepiest woman ever (she also did a brilliant turn as Lady MacBeth in a super low-budget BBC production. You know the kind -  where a box is meant to represent a banquet table and the curtain is Dinsmore Castle?)  And no one other than Sissy Spacek could so beautifully portray an awkward teenage girl who is endearing, affectless and tormented then transform into a terrifying wreaker of adolescent vengeance the next.  (Some day I'll have to dig up my pictures of the year I dressed as Carrie...)   Anyway, Halloween may be over for another year, but Carrie will chill you to the bone anytime.

Keep Warm

Snow fell here in Montreal last week; honest-to-goodness big, wet flakes of beautiful snow.  Lovely to  behold, but somewhat horrifying to consider.  If it starts snowing in October, that means winter could last as long as seven months, as opposed to its usual 5-6 month stranglehold. I actually love winter for the first three months or so, but then the love turns to tolerance, which soon sours to frustration , and then finall I start to weep on the inside.  So, as you can see, I have rather complicated feelings about those  pretty little flakes.  It's been quite cold and grey this past week, and I'm preoccupied with keeping warm; double-socks with slippers, scarves on inside the house.  It doesn't seem fair to make the dolls suffer their usual little bare arms, so I've given a few little sleeved capelets to wear.  They look so cute, I'm thinking I need a few for myself...

Some are still naked and bald, the poor dears, so I'm busily chopping up old, holey sweaters and giving them new life as doll-warmers.

 

The cats, however, seem to have this whole business of keeping warm all figured out.  Here they are, all three, in a sweet kitten heap. 

As I write the, the Mr. l'Orange is firmly planted under my chin. He thinks it's time to stop writing!

Currently Experiencing Technical Difficulties...

I apologize, faithful readers, for such a long absence.  I spent six days in Toronto last week for Canadian Thanksgiving, and am now having very painful computer drama.  Well, it's not all that dramatic really; for many months I had the use of a lovely, shiny practically brand-new Mac powerbook (o glorious object!) thanks to the huge generosity of a friend of mine. But now I'm back to my own ancient and hair-tearingly slow beast of a computer, which makes even the simplest of tasks take forever.  I feel as though I've been flung back into the dinosaur age, or at least the days of dial-up, which were dark days indeed. (And this is where my fascination with the past reveals my utter hypocrisy because I do like certain things - computer things -  to be shiny and new and fast, fast, fast!) 

But I must take a deep breath, accept that until we get a new computer, such things will take six times as long, and soldier on...On the luddite front, I had another assembly-line evening the other night where I hand-tore dozens of the little thank you cards I include with orders and then stamped them all with my sweet little black-eyed susan stamp. 

 

They are very simple, but quite pretty, especially all in a row.

 

I'm also working away on new dolls for my next shop update, which will take place sometime in early November.

This weekend, we saw the new Jane Campion film, Bright Star, about the relationship between Keats and his fiancée Fanny Brawn; so, so lovely.  I confess I have a weakness for period film and will watch pretty much anything with big, rustling dresses (though, being set in the early 19th century, Bright Star's dresses are not so very big).  But this is a truly beautiful film, pretty clothes aside; the story is heart-breaking and romantic while still being restrained, and the actors are all excellent (though I did have try to push images of Abbie Cornish snuggled up next to Ryan 'dead-eyes' Phillipe out of mind).  And it is really worth seeing in the theatre because there are some stunning shots of the English countryside and the heaths.  Oh, le sigh!  I snivelled away in the theatre, but managed  - just barely - not to break into the big, slobby dry-heaves. You can watch the trailer here, and if you go, take your tissues...